MEET THE BROWNS: DIBS, SON OF FATS

James Howard "Fats" Brown, the legendary pool player, spent fifteen years in Purgatory to expunge his sins from Life. He did so by going back to Earth in order to play every claimant to his crown as the ultimate pool champion. The reason he had to pay such a penance was simple - by being so fixated on billiards in Life, he neglected everything else, including his own family.

And because they didn't have a firm father figure in their lives, at least one of his kids grew up to live his own life on the wrong side of the law.

That son was Dibs Brown. He became so notorious as "Dibs" that when he was on trial, the jury knew him - and exonerated him - as Dibs Brown, not by his given name.

That time he was lucky, because he had Carlton Rood as his defense attorney. But the next time he would have a harder time of it because by then, Rood was dead.....

SPLAININ TO DO:

'The Saint' episode was broadcast three years after the episode of 'The Twilight Zone', but the son looks older than the father.  Remember, Fats Brown had been dead for 15 years.  And when he died, he was an old man.  But in his ghostly form, Fats looked as he did at the height of his fame as the world's billiards champion.  When he died as an old man, his son Dibs was already middle-aged.

SHOWS CITED:

• 'The Twilight Zone' - "A Game Of Pool"
• 'The Saint' - "Element Of Doubt"

BCnU!